Early Doors

A tale I often tell is that I must surely be one of the few secondary school pupils to be told not to come to school `so early`.

In the lower school I took the bus from near my home, Hunters Way, to school. In those days there was a bus at 8:30 a.m. which would have delivered me at school on time, a bus at 8:10 a.m. which was the one I aimed for and one at 8:00 a.m. which I caught a few times as I was already at the bus stop opposite St. Edward the Confessor Church on Tadcaster Road before 8:00 a.m. Do you remember the gate between the Old Wing and the Middle Wing? I would wait there.

Each morning I heard footsteps approaching the school and mounting the steps to the staff entrance – Miss Willoughby`s footsteps. I looked down at her approach so I only heard her. After a few mornings the footsteps changed direction. Instead of mounting the steps they advanced on me. “Do you live far from school?” she asked in her authoritative voice. I don’t remember looking at her but mumbled “No, Miss Willoughby”. “Don`t come to school so early” she ordered and so I stopped.

All my life I have arrived excessively early. I wasn’t unhappy at home but I wonder if nowadays I would have been asked why I stood there by myself in front of a locked gate.

Rose Berl